British Airways stopped flying over over eastern Ukraine months before the MH17 disaster, Willie Walsh, the chief executive on the company's owner IAG, said on Friday.

Mr Walsh, who reported strong first-half results at International Airlines Group (IAG), said the potential cost of changing flight paths is not factored into BA's decisions.

"It's simply a case that we look at whether it is safe to fly over an area or not," Mr Walsh told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

IAG profits were boosted by Iberia, British Airways’ Spanish sister airline, which has finally flown back into profit after almost two years of painful restructuring that has claimed 4,500 jobs.

Iberia made an operating profit of €16m (£12.7m) in the second quarter, helping its IAG to a pre-tax profit of €96m for the six months to June 30 - a significant turnaround from the €503m loss in the first half of last year. IAG as a whole returned to a full-year profit in 2013 but Iberia was still making heavy losses

The secord quarter operating profit at Iberia is a vindication for IAG’s chief executive, Willie Walsh, who pushed ahead with restructuring of Iberia against the background of strikes and political outcry in Spain.

Mr Walsh said all three of IAG’s airlines, also including BA and the Spanish budget carrier Vueling, had their strongest second quarter since 2007.

British Airways, which was merged with Iberia in 2011, made an operating profit of €332m in the second quarter up from €247m a year ago. Iberia’s operating profit compared to a €35m loss in the second quarter of 2013.

“Iberia's restructuring continues to have a positive impact and last week Iberia signed an agreement that could lead to an additional reduction of up to 1,427 jobs,” Mr Walsh said.

“This will create new opportunities for Iberia to enhance its profitability further in the next two or three years. Based on the progress made at Iberia, we're pleased to announce today that eight Airbus A350-900s and eight Airbus A330-200s will be joining its long-haul fleet as replacement aircraft.”

Across the IAG group, revenue jumped 6.7pc to £9.3bn in the first half of the year.

Despite the successful second quarter, Mr Walsh said IAG would cut capacity by about 3pc over the winter.

He added: “This performance shows that we are making further solid progress. Our disciplined approach to capacity continues and we will make reductions where it makes sense as we go through the year. We are, therefore, trimming planned IAG capacity by around three percentage points for the winter 2014 season.”

IAG was the biggest riser on the FTSE 100 on Friday morning after the group's second-quarter performance beat analysts' expectations.